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Saturday, Jul 4, 2009
I didn't truly get the human story, on a personal level, about what was going on in the aftermath of New Orleans until reading this story. Exceptionally well-written, and hard-hitting. Thank you. Amy
I won't comment on the substance of this article because, frankly, I haven't read it.
You instantly lose credibility with this former NOLA resident with the caption of your photo.
That is most certainly *not* a 'shotgun' house.
If that represents the standard which prevails throughout this article, you can count on hearing from me a bit later.
Definitely not a shotgun house in the photo. (It's a bungalow.) I'm left wishing the writer would have taken the time to consider a few of the questions that should be rolling through everyone's head these days. Just where are the billions of dollars going if not to provide city services? What is this or any other city without its oldest neighborhoods and residents? Are there ways of building up the land in lower lying areas? Of moving rather than destroying older housing stock? How much of the proposed "higher density housing" is going to resemble the project housing of urban renewal days--both in (un)feeling and utter failure?
The idea that the survival of these older neighborhoods is going to be the demise of New Orleans simply because they would use limited city resources is ludicrous. Outlying suburbs have been allowed to tap city services for decades without paying for them. Now the arguments against sprawl are being leveled at historic housing stock and the city's tax base? It's enough to make one's head spin.
Overall a good, not great article, but please keep publishing articles about New Orleans.
We are just entering a 30-year hurricane era. It will probably be a lot worse than previous hurricane eras due to global warming. The best thing that could happen is for another category 4 hurricane to hit the gulf coast, before a lot of money is wasted on rebuilding in low-lying areas. The Bush administration was totally stupid in its combination of socialism and capitalism in its response to Katrina. It would have been a lot cheaper and simpler to give the affected residents money and told them to do what they wanted with it, but don't come back. Oregon has a coast that is almost devoid of towns, even though it does not have hurricanes. In the early 20th century the state designated the coast as a highway right of way, about a mile wide as I recall. Now that tsunamis are perceived as a threat it looks like a very wise move. The gulf coast should have the same approach. A thousand mile long park as wide as necessary to avoid building in low-lying areas would be appropriate. Very few of us remember the incredible hurricanes of the 1950's. They used to tear up the east coast. When I was at MIT in the mid-50's all the bridges between New York and Boston were destroyed by a hurricane. For a week it was very difficult to travel that route. Our ancestors have moved on for thousands of years when it became necessary. I have lived in LA, NY, Boston, OR, PA, and now ID in my adult life. Screw the silly sentimentality of these whiners. After the next big one they'll be whining again. Only a fool lives many feet below a rising sea level.
New caption: A house in the formerly flooded Broadmoor neighborhood.
Is at least accurate.
Recently I've become aware how common it was before WW2 for houses to be picked up and moved to other sites. I'm surprised I'm not hearing more about it in the case of New Orleans neighborhoods like Broadmoor.
The nice, recently rennovated house described in this article is certainly worth saving, even if the land it sits on is eventually deemed to be too low. Why not move it to another location?
I realize that this would not save the neighborhood, which would be the best outcome, but may not be possible. Still, it seems preferable to demolishing good houses at a time when so many houses have been destroyed.
I guess I'm just feeling defensive but I have a problem with John McIlwain's statement that if New Orleans residents fight for their homes and neighborhoods then the city might end up like . . gasp . . DETROIT!
The implication is that if the situation in New Orleans is allowed to worsen then it might get as bad as Detroit already is. Detroit has serious problems, to be sure, but it's a completely different scenario. I haven't actually seen New Orleans but Detroit can't possibly be that bad.
The problem with the rebuilding plan, which designates more devastated and lower-elevation portions of the city as candidates for razing and green space, is that it presumes that the flooding was a natural event doomed to be repeated. This is a correct premise in many unprotected floodplains. It is an incorrect premise in New Orleans, however. For many decades, our city has been protected from levees that keep water out and by one of the most technologically advanced pumping systems to get the water out that comes in in the form of rain. What flooded our city was not the natural effects of Hurricane Katrina, but the human ineptitude of those who built "new and improved" levees and floodwalls in the early 1990s. Make no misttake about the identity of those builders, either. It was not local politicians or fragmented levee boards, decried far and wide by those who know no better as the corrupt engineers of our demise. It was the federal government, in the form of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, that oversaw the design and building of those levees and floodwalls that failed, pouring devastation into our city. Hence, it is not the footprint of the city that is inherently broken and in need of alteration, but the man-made protections of the city that should be overhauled.
To the extent that there is financial hardship to providing services now to these devastated areas of the city, it is the same actor -- the federal government -- that is culpable and should be liable for making this city whole again. But, as the feds are slow in everything involving response to this man-made disaster, we are absolutely right to take risks and work into our own hands and start rebuilding ourselves.
The media outlet's use of Bush euphemisms sparks a much-needed debate on journalistic standards.
The Wasilla soap opera just gets weirder as Palin complains critics are "picking apart a good point guard"
And so are his Fox News pals, who lambasted Sen. Al Franken's "stolen election"
An inflexible right wing is allowing the Golden State to drown in debt. But it's not alone
Thanks for sharing, Governor. Now please take a cue from Norm Coleman, and go away
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